集装箱船舶大型化对中国班轮运输的影响

通过竞争情报分析提供了各班轮公司未来船队结构和运力的变化趋势,由此观察到各班轮公司为了降低自身的营运成本,在最近几年大量订购超巴拿马型甚至更大型的集装箱船舶参与运输,但是却不能达到其预期的规模效应。原因就在于相当一部分成本随着船型的增大而线性增加,规模不经济。我们探讨了中国的班轮运输市场的几个重要特点:中外贸易的不平衡导致了货源的不平衡;未来贸易结构的调整会影响航线的布局和调派;贸易上的不稳定因素使班轮公司遇到外在的风险。这些特点会深远地影响集装箱船舶大型化的经济受益,相反的,集装箱船舶大型化的趋势也会加剧这些负面的影响,危及整个班轮运输市场。     

The impact of port operations on efficient ship operation from both economic and environmental perspectives

Recently, shipping lines have focused on efficient ship operation, which relates to energy efficiency issues in shipping and, particularly, to operational issues such that the minimisation of fuel consumption and resulting greenhouse gas emissions. Efficient ship operation in container lines is closely related to the ship’s time at sea and ship’s time in port. Reduction in port time, thanks to high-quality port operations, allows improvement in the operational efficiency of a liner service by reducing the fuel consumption of a ship at sea and its resulting CO₂ emissions. The main goal of this article is to investigate how time in port affects efficient ship operation in terms of operating costs, CO₂ emissions and externalities. For this, as a methodology, a simulation based upon system dynamics is introduced. Major finding is that less time in port resulting from the improvement of port operations contributes to efficient ship operation in terms of operating costs, amount of CO₂ emissions and external effects in the liner shipping industry. In particular, a sensitivity analysis on efficient ship operation vis-à-vis the quality of port operation shows that bigger ships need to select highly productive calling ports that provide less time in port.     

Environmental awareness and practice concerning maritime air emissions: the case of the Greek shipping industry

One of the most urgent environmental problems facing the shipping industry today is the reduction of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from its operations and the possible cost-effective ways in which this reduction could be accomplished. Various technical and operational measures have been proposed as well as market-based instruments for the achievement of the compliance of marine industry with these measures. This paper investigates the levels of environmental awareness of the Greek shipping companies and their views and practices on the proposed policies for the reduction of GHG emissions from their ships. A survey was carried out using a questionnaire distributed to Greek shipping companies of different sizes, involved in different segments of the marine industry, so that the survey's results not only represent a large part of the Greek shipping industry but also reveal the different environmental attitudes and practices on maritime GHG emissions among the shipping companies. Given the size and the importance of the Greek shipping industry in the international maritime field, this paper's results present a special significance as they could be further analyzed and taken into account for the achievement of the compliance of marine industry with any future policy instrument for the reduction of maritime GHG emissions.     

The effects of slow steaming on the environmental performance in liner shipping

The environment issue is one of the significant challenges that the liner shipping industry has to face. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set a goal to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from existing vessels by 20–50% by 2050 and develop the Energy Efficiency Operational Indicator (EEOI) as a measure for energy efficiency. To achieve this goal, IMO has suggested three basic approaches: the enlargement of vessel size, the reduction of voyage speed, and the application of new technologies. In recent times, liners have adopted slow steaming and decelerated the voyage speed to 15–18 knots on major routes. This is because slow steaming is helpful in reducing operating costs and GHG emissions. However, it also creates negative effects that influence the operating costs and the amount of GHG emissions at the same time.

This study started with the basic question: Is it true that as voyage speed reduces, the operating costs and CO₂ emissions can be reduced at the same time? If this is true, liners will definitely decelerate their voyage speed themselves as much as possible so that they can increase their profits and improve the level of environmental performance. However, if this is not true, then liners will concentrate just on increasing their profits by not considering environmental factors. This led the authors to set out three objectives: (1) to analyze the relationship between voyage speed and the amount of CO₂ emissions and to estimate the changes by slow steaming in liner shipping; (2) to analyze the relationship between voyage speed and the operating costs on a loop; and (3) to find the optimal voyage speed as a solution to maximize the reduction of CO₂ emissions at the lowest operating cost, thus satisfying the reduction target of IMO.     

Strategic alliances in container liner shipping

The economic crisis in the years between 2008 and 2010 has demonstrated the necessity for substantial adjustments on behalf of container lines. Capacities were shifted quickly to emerging and less affected markets allowing a faster recovery of globally organized companies. This paper illustrates the dynamics in the container shipping market. Alongside the main characteristics of the Top 20 ocean shipping companies, liner services are described. These services are classified by geographic coverage and vessel deployment. In addition, this paper provides a better understanding of the collaboration among service providers. Starting from a general framework of co-operative liner services, in-depth analyses of the global alliances in liner shipping are obtained. These formations - Grand Alliance, New World Alliance and CKYH Alliance - are compared with alternative forms of collaboration in the liner shipping industry. The analysis of alliance announcements which are related to operational and strategic changes indicates that the “global alliances” cannot be regarded as closed corporate-like entities. In effect, service agreements are not only negotiated with the focal members of the specific alliance. Instead, every service is arranged individually and under specific conditions. By understanding the dynamics within alliances, we are able to develop an assessment relating to the stability of collaborations. Ultimately, these insights direct us to several paths for future research.     

Intermodal route selection for cargo transportation from Korea to Central Asia by adopting Fuzzy Delphi and Fuzzy ELECTRE I methods

Due to the increase in trade from Korea to Central Asia, an efficient intermodal route for transporting cargo is important. Intermodal routing for long-distance transportation faces operational challenges, such as customs clearance, track gauge differences, and climate limitations. The initiative of the Silk Road Economic Belt recently proposed in China could improve trade and transport links in Asia and create an efficient transportation route that focuses on the railroad service provided in China. The objective of this study is to obtain an evaluation structure for intermodal routing and then find the route for transporting cargo from Korea to Central Asia under China’s Silk Road Economic Belt with integrated Fuzzy Delphi and Fuzzy (Elimination Et Choice Translating Reality (ELECTRE) I methods. After a sensitivity analysis is performed, development strategies and alternative routes are suggested. The results show that among the five principal factors, total cost is the most important factor for logistics companies when they select a transportation route, followed by reliability, transportation capability, total time, and security. Of the sub-factor weights, transportation costs and cooperation and emphasis among state organization are important. In the intermodal route results, route 3, Incheon to Qingdao to Horgos to Almaty, is preferred.     

A reactive container rerouting model for container flow recovery in a hub-and-spoke liner shipping network

This paper focuses on the container rerouting due to a disruption, aims at making the optimal container flow recovery plan for the affected liner shipping company. First, we make the initial effort to bring up with a basic framework of disruption management for liner shipping. Second, we present a compact integer linear programming model for addressing the container rerouting problem under the proposed framework in a hub-and-spoke liner shipping network, based on a given recovery vessel schedule that determines to omit a port of call. Other shipping companies’ services and other modes (roadway, railway, and airline) as candidate alternative means to transport the miss-connected containers are also incorporated in the proposed model. The container flow recovery plan would select the optimal alternative paths for the miss-connected containers balancing the trade-off between container transport costs and delivery delay penalty costs. Finally, a case study from a global liner shipping company is investigated and the computational results indicate the model can be solved effectively and efficiently for the real-scale problem. Thus, the proposed approach in this paper can supply real-time decision support tool for the liner shipping operators on handling the process of container flow recovery.     

Foldable container in empty container repositioning in intermodal transportation network of Belt and Road Initiative: strengths and limitations

In 2013, the concept of the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road (Belt and Road)’ was initiated by the Chinese government, which involves Asian, European and African continents and their adjacent seas. Logistics plays a core role in such a large framework of economy and trade. In recent years, China, European Union, and Southeast Asia pay much attention to the design and development of the intermodal transportation network towards both economic and environmental efficiency. In this paper, we propose an empty container repositioning model in the intermodal transportation network of Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative by considering both standard and foldable containers. In this model, empty containers are repositioned from the inland of the original area, such as China, to other areas of B&R Initiative related countries and regions, such as European Union and Southeast Asia. We develop a mixed integer linear programming model to determine the optimal repositioning of empty containers via the intermodal transportation network. An Artificial Bee Colony algorithm is developed to solve large size problems in practice and numerical experiments are conducted to show the efficiency of our proposed algorithm. We provide managerial insights regarding the impact on the network performance of foldable containers transportation.     

Vulnerability analysis of global container shipping liner network based on main channel disruption

The Malacca Strait, the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal play an important role in the global container shipping. To study the impact of main channel interruption on the container shipping, we analysed statistical data on all routes operated by the top 100 global container liner companies and constructed a network model. We selected four topological metrics to measure the network’s connectivity and used the network weekly total shipping capacity and average shortest shipping time to measure the network’s transportation capacity and transportation time. The interruption of the main channel is simulated, and the changes in the metrics are analysed. The results indicated that the network’s vulnerability is sensitive to main channel interruption. If the Malacca Strait is interrupted, the network’s prosperity degree fall by almost half and the network’s transportation time increase by more than a quarter if the Suez Canal is interrupted. In addition, East Asian and European container liner shipping have more than 50% dependence on the Malacca Strait and the Suez Canal. Moreover, the container transport time between ports in East Asia, Europe, and North America and the rest of the world increases by an average of 4–9 days in the main channel interruption.     

A systemic review of shipboard SCR installations in practice

Growing customer demands and more stringent regulations to reduce harmful air emissions from ships have resulted in an increased interest for the installation of shipboard abatement technologies. Specifically, the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO_x) was early adopted by several Swedish shipping companies. The potential NO_x reduction efficiency of the SCR is well established, but the practical experiences of shipboard installations have been less documented. This paper reviews from a systems perspective the practical experiences of marine SCR installations in Swedish shipping. The aim is to identify important not only technical but also human and organizational conditions necessary for safe, efficient, and sustainable SCR operations at sea. Further, to investigate to what extent the capabilities and limitations of human operators and maintainers are taken into account in the design and installation phase of the systems. Two focus group interviews (n?=?10) and five individual interviews were held with relevant stakeholders in the industry, following a semi-structured schedule on the themes installation, operation, maintenance, and training. The results show that deficiencies in the overall system design—with a combination of technical issues, maintenance access problems, and untrained operators with inadequate understanding of the SCR process—have led to inefficient, costly, and unsafe operations. It is concluded that installations and operations of marine SCR systems, and possibly other forthcoming abatement technologies, would benefit from the use of traditional ergonomic principles and methods. This would in turn contribute towards increased sustainability and a reduced environmental impact from shipping.     

Liner shipping industry sets sail with full speed

The article presents the past and current trends in liner shipping and stresses that in a near future, the market will benefit from five main factors: the robust shipping surrounding from international trade; the structural change in industrial relocation; the China factor; the increase in ship-owners’ profitability and lastly the liberalisation of markets and of the shipping industry that will generate new opportunities. At the same time, the article also sheds light on factors that could put limits to the growth in the short run: the expected decrease in freight rate, the increase in bunker costs and in port dues combined with the strengthening of imbalance in trades are identified as the main elements that could put limits on the vitality of liner shipping business.     

Optimizing shipping company operations using business process modelling

In order to identify the elements constituting quality in services, a business process modelling methodology has been applied in the case of a Greek liner shipping company. The company operations have been identified and analysed in order to assess the complete performance of service elements and thereafter identify how to match the service performance against the user requirements. A liner container service within Europe has to compete with the road transport which, in many cases, is an alternative to the sea transportation and not complementary to it. Thus, not only the ship has to be envisaged when aiming to improve quality in services but also the whole chain, namely port authorities, land transportation enterprises, subcontractors, agents, charterers and others. A set of potential improvements within this framework are thus suggested and time and cost (examined in a specific voyage scenario) are measured before and after the implementation of these measures. Very large time and cost savings are observed after the application of the technology improvements, allowing, in fact, the shipping company to even increase the number of round trips per year in the examined route. This indicates that very large benefits can be drawn by analysing and critically adjusting business processes in modern shipping companies.     

Optimizing shipping company operations using business process modelling

In order to identify the elements constituting quality in services, a business process modelling methodology has been applied in the case of a Greek liner shipping company. The company operations have been identified and analysed in order to assess the complete performance of service elements and thereafter identify how to match the service performance against the user requirements. A liner container service within Europe has to compete with the road transport which, in many cases, is an alternative to the sea transportation and not complementary to it. Thus, not only the ship has to be envisaged when aiming to improve quality in services but also the whole chain, namely port authorities, land transportation enterprises, subcontractors, agents, charterers and others. A set of potential improvements within this framework are thus suggested and time and cost (examined in a specific voyage scenario) are measured before and after the implementation of these measures. Very large time and cost savings are observed after the application of the technology improvements, allowing, in fact, the shipping company to even increase the number of round trips per year in the examined route. This indicates that very large benefits can be drawn by analysing and critically adjusting business processes in modern shipping companies.     

Korean liner shipping in the era of global alliances

In the course of the last two decades Korean shipping has emerged as a major player in the liner market. In 1970 there was not a single container ship in the Korean fleet; yet, within the next two decades, shipping companies from Korea have become included among the top 10 liner operators in the world, in the context of a spectacular ascent of Asian companies in international container shipping. During the same period the organization of liner shipping itself underwent major changes. In the 1970s and 1980s, pools and powerful consortia prevailed, maximizing frequency and optimizing fleet deployment under pressure from the high investment entailed by containerization. The era of consortia, however, came to a close in the early 1990s; intermodalism and the expansion of the major liner companies into forward and backward segments of the transport chain rendered them inflexible for pursuing individual strategies of product diversification with a view to larger market shares. Global alliances were finally born as a result of a major reshuffling of co-operation agreements and of the globalization of the production process on the demand side. The aim of this paper is to follow and assess the options available to an aggressive low-cost national fleet in its journey to competitive maturity through a period of changing organization of liner shipping, focusing on the course of the leading Korean container company, and one of the largest in the world today, Hanjin. It highlights at the same time both the deep structural changes which liner shipping has undergone in the last two decades and the effects of current changes, such as the recent wave of mergers in this sector.     

Liner shipping development trends

The expansion of liner shipping paralleled developments in retailing and containerization introduced scale economics. The liner industry has moved into an era of prosperity, and containerships have been affecting demand for other ship types. Demand growth is generally taken for granted, but several factors have been putting pressure on smaller carriers, including upsizing and route network developments. Trends appear to favour independent operation over vessel sharing and increasing profitability suggests that carriers will seek to own more of their own assets. Competition from logistics providers will increasingly dictate how the industry develops.     

Liner shipping development trends

The expansion of liner shipping paralleled developments in retailing and containerization introduced scale economics. The liner industry has moved into an era of prosperity, and containerships have been affecting demand for other ship types. Demand growth is generally taken for granted, but several factors have been putting pressure on smaller carriers, including upsizing and route network developments. Trends appear to favour independent operation over vessel sharing and increasing profitability suggests that carriers will seek to own more of their own assets. Competition from logistics providers will increasingly dictate how the industry develops.     

Effect of proposed CO2 emission reduction scenarios on capital expenditure

The International Maritime Organisation is currently working on establishing regulations for international shipping regarding greenhouse gas emissions, and a cost-effectiveness approach has been suggested as one method for determining the necessary reductions in emissions from shipping. Previous studies have investigated the CO₂ emission reduction potential for the world shipping fleet up to 2030 and the associated marginal abatement cost levels. To analyse the cost implications of different emission reduction scenarios, this study has calculated the emission reduction potential and additional capital expenditure for 25 CO₂ emission reduction measures applied to 59 ship segments. The expected fleet development over time, keeping track of new ships built from 2010 to 2030 and Existing ships built prior to 2010 and still in operation by 2030, have been modelled. Two alternative approaches to find the cost-effective potential in the world shipping fleet have been applied. One approach is to implement only measures which in themselves are cost-effective (measure-by-measure), and another approach is to implement measures as long as the net savings from cost-effective measures balance the costs of non-cost-effective measures (set of measures). The results demonstrate that by 2030, the majority (93%) of the reduction potential will be related to new ships. Our results show that the measure-by-measure approach would decrease the CO₂ emissions by 30% for new ships while the set-of-measures approach with 53% (of the 2030 baseline emissions of 1316?Mt). The implication of achieving such emission reduction is an increase in the capital expenditure on New ships by 6% (USD 183 billion) and 27% (USD 761 billion), respectively, in the period 2010 to 2030 compared to a business-as-usual scenario. The measure-by-measure approach yields a 5% decrease in CO₂ emission per 1% increase in capital expenditure, while the set-of-measures approach yields a 2% decrease per 1% increase. This is due to the significant variation in capital intensity of the different measures, ranging from almost zero to USD 200 per tonne of CO₂ averted. The results of this study are useful for the shipping industry to assess the economic burden that must be shouldered in order to implement abatement measures under different CO₂ emission reduction scenarios.     

Cost-effectiveness assessment of CO2 reducing measures in shipping

International shipping is a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and is under mounting pressure to contribute to overall GHG emission reductions. There is an ongoing debate regarding how much the sector could be expected to reduce emissions and how the reduction could be achieved. This paper details a methodology for assessing the cost-effectiveness of technical and operational measures for reducing CO₂ emissions from shipping, through the development of an evaluation parameter called the Cost of Averting a Tonne of CO₂-eq Heating, CATCH, and decision criterion, against which the evaluation parameter should be evaluated. The methodology is in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and with regulatory work on safety and environmental protection issues at the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

The results of this study suggest that CATCH <50 $/tonne of CO₂-eq should be used as a decision criterion for investment in emission reduction measures for shipping. In total, 13 specific measures for reducing CO₂ emissions have been analysed for two selected case ships to illustrate the methodology. Results from this work shows that several measures are cost effective according to the proposed criterion. The results suggest that cost effective reductions for the fleet may well be in the order of 30% for technical measures, and above 50% when including speed reductions. The results of this study show that the cost effectiveness approach for the regulation of shipping emissions is viable and should be pursued in the ongoing regulatory process.     

Liner alliances in the globalization era: a strategic tool for Asian container carriers

There has been an increased interest recently in alliances as successors of the large consortia that used to operate in the context of the conference system. Today, having become a common means and term of co-operation in a variety of other industries, alliances are posited as the response of the supply side of liner shipping to important changes on the demand side; alliances have, thus, become predominant in the most important routes for container cargoes. In recent years, however, the list of major container traffic generators and the list of major carriers of containerized cargoes have begun to contain more common entries, generally originating from the Asian region. Asia is, however, a large continent and the entrance of Asian carriers into liner shipping has not been simultaneous; the position, strategies and co-operation strategies of Asian companies have more differences than they share common features. Nevertheless, this paper suggests that alliances are a distinct form of co-operation in liner shipping and the empirical evidence based on a survey in the region supports this hypothesis. The similarity of attitudes of the major Asian container carriers vis a vis alliances is in this way revealing in terms of the range of motivations for participating in the alliance system in a globalized transport environment.     

Short sea shipping

This paper quantifies the potential environmental benefit of short sea shipping. Critical strategic issues relevant to formulating public policy are developed. Coastal shipping has traditionally been a major sector of the maritime industry. This continues to be the case in the European Union, but the sector has diminished in relative importance in North America as the transport industry has become increasingly dominated by less environmentally-friendly interstate trucking and railroads. Congestion threatens to overwhelm overland carriage and limit economic growth. An alternative strategy is to revitalize coastal shipping as short sea shipping to alleviate traffic congestion and enhance economic development by maintaining freight flow efficiency. Because ship transport offers higher fuel economy and lower emission of harmful pollutants, the environmental benefits of short sea shipping over land transportation can be quantified and used to inform public policy.